Back in the mid-1980s Mark Roth was in 5th grade when the game ChipWits "helped kindle his interest in coding," according to an online biography. ("By middle school, he wrote his first Commodore 64 assembler and by high school he authored a 3D Graphics library for DOS.")

And 40 years later, Slashdot reader markroth8 writes that the programming puzzle/logic game "inspired many people to become professional coders": ChipWits was first released for Mac in 1984, and was later ported to Commodore 64 and Apple II in 1985. To celebrate the game's 40th anniversary, the team behind the new Steam reboot of ChipWits (including its original co-creator Doug Sharp, also of fame for the game King of Chicago) is announcing the recovery and open source release of the original game's source code, written in the FORTH programming language, for both Mac and Commodore 64 platforms.

Recovering data from 40-year old 5.25" and 3.5" disks was a challenge in and of itself, and most of the data survived unscathed! It's interesting to read the 40-year-old code, and compare it to modern game development.
"Our goal for open sourcing the original version of ChipWits is to ensure its legacy lives on," according to the announcement. (It adds that "We also wanted to share an appreciation for what cross-platform software development for 8-bit microcomputers was like in 1984.")

The GitHub Secure Open Source Fund launched this week with an initial commitment of $1.25 million, reports TechCrunch, using "capital from contributors including American Express, 1Password, Shopify, Stripe, and GitHub's own parent company Microsoft." GitHub briefly teased the new initiative at its annual GitHub Universe developer conference last month, but Tuesday it announced full details and formally opened the program for applicants, which will be reviewed "on a rolling basis" through the closing date of January 7, 2025, with programming and funding starting shortly after...

Tuesday's news builds on a number of previous GitHub initiatives designed to support project maintainers that work on key components of critical software, including GitHub Sponsors which landed in 2019 (and which is powering the new fund), but more directly the GitHub Accelerator program that launched its first cohort last year — the GitHub Secure Open Source Fund is essentially an extension of that.

"We're trying to acknowledge the fact that we're the home of open source, ultimately, and we have an obligation to help ensure that open source can continue to thrive and have the support that it needs," GitHub Chief Operating Officer Kyle Daigle told TechCrunch in an interview. Qualifying projects can be pretty much any project that has an open source license, but of course GitHub will be looking at those that need the funds most — so Kubernetes can hold fire with its application. "We're looking for the outsized impact, which tends to be big projects with few maintainers that we all rely on," Daigle said.

The sum of $1.25 million might sound like a reasonable amount, but it will be split across 125 projects, which means just $10,000 each — better than nothing, for sure, but a drop in the ocean on the grand scheme of things. However, Daigle is quick to stress that money is only part of the prize here — as with the initial accelerator program, maintainers embark on a three-week program, which includes mentorship, certification, education workshops, and ongoing access to GitHub tools.
From GitHub's announcement: Since introducing support for organizations through GitHub Sponsors, more than 5,800 organizations, including Microsoft and Stripe, have invested in maintainers and projects on GitHub, up nearly 40% YoY. Cumulatively, the platform has unlocked over $60 million in funding for maintainers to help them spend more time working on their projects.

But we know we're just scratching the surface when it comes to organizations and corporate support of open source. This summer, we partnered with the Linux Foundation and researchers from Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard (LISH) to learn more about the state of open source funding today. Diving in, we assessed organizations funding behaviors, potential misalignments, and opportunities to improve. In the report launched today, we found:


- Responding organizations annually invest $1.7 billion in open source, which can be extrapolated to estimate that approximately $7.7 billion is invested across the entire open source ecosystem annually.

- 86% of investment is in the form of contribution labor by employees and contractors working for the funding organization, with the remaining 14% being direct financial contributions.

- Organizations generally know how and where they contribute (65%) but lack specific clarity of their contributions (38%).

- Security efforts focus on bugs and maintenance; only a few (6%) said comprehensive security audits are a priority.


We all stand to benefit from unlocking more funding for open source. By tackling problems like open source security as an ecosystem, we believe we can help create more available funding and resources that are vital to the sustainability of open source. Not every open source project or maintainer has access to funding and training for security. That's why we created a fund that everyone potentially eligible can apply for...

This is the beginning of a journey into helping find ways to secure open source. On its own, it's not the answer, but we are confident it will help. We will be monitoring the impact of these investments and share what we learn as we go.

Slashdot reader Bruce66423 shared this report from the Guardian: Staff have resigned at Starling Bank after its new chief executive demanded thousands of workers attend its offices more frequently, despite lacking enough space to host them.

In his first major policy change since taking over from the UK digital bank's founder, Anne Boden, in March, Raman Bhatia has ordered all hybrid staff — many of whom were in the office only one or two days a week, or on an ad-hoc basis — to travel to work for a minimum of 10 days each month. But the bank, which operates online only, admitted that some of its offices would not be equipped to handle the influx... "We are considering ways in which we can create more space," an email sent by Starling's human resources team and seen by the Guardian said.

Starling has 3,231 staff, the vast majority of whom are in the UK with some also in Dublin. However, the Guardian understands that the bank has only about 900 desks, including 260 at its Cardiff site, 320 in its London headquarters and 155 in Southampton. The bank has a further 160 desks in its newest site in Manchester, where it has signed a 10-year lease to occupy the fifth floor of the Landmark building, which also houses Santander UK and HSBC staff... Some staff have already resigned over the "rushed" announcement, while others have threatened to do so...

The return to office announcement came a month after the Financial Conduct Authority hit Starling with a £29m fine after discovering "shockingly lax" controls that it said left the financial system "wide open to criminals". That included failures in its automated screening system for individuals facing government sanctions.
Starling Bank issued this statement to explain its reasoning. "By bringing colleagues together in person, our aim is to achieve greater collaboration that will benefit our customers as we enter Starling's next phase of growth."

The article also notes that the U.K. supermarket chain Asda "has also toughened its stance, making it compulsory for thousands of workers at its offices in Leeds and Leicester to spend at least three days a week at their desks from the new year."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: DirecTV is pulling out of an agreement to buy its satellite rival Dish after bondholders objected to terms of the deal. DirecTV issued an announcement last night saying "it has notified EchoStar of its election to terminate, effective as of 11:59 p.m., ET on Friday, November 22nd, 2024, the Equity Purchase Agreement (EPA) pursuant to which it had agreed to acquire EchoStar's video distribution business, Dish DBS."

In the deal announced on September 30, DirecTV was going to buy the Dish satellite TV and Sling TV streaming business from EchoStar for a nominal fee of $1. DirecTV would have taken on $9.75 billion of Dish debt if the transaction moved ahead. The deal did not include the Dish Network cellular business. Dish bondholders quickly objected to terms requiring them to take a loss on the value of their debt. DirecTV had said Dish notes would be exchanged with "a reduced principal amount of DirecTV debt which will have terms and collateral that mirror DirecTV's existing secured debt." The principal amount would have been reduced by at least $1.568 billion.

DirecTV last night said it is now exercising its right to terminate the acquisition because noteholders did not accept the exchange offer. "The termination of the Agreement follows Dish DBS noteholders' failure to agree to the proposed Exchange Debt Offer Terms issued by EchoStar, which was a condition of DirecTV's obligations to acquire Dish under the EPA," the press release said. DirecTV CEO Bill Morrow indicated his company wasn't willing to change the deal to satisfy Dish bondholders. "We have terminated the transaction because the proposed Exchange Terms were necessary to protect DirecTV's balance sheet and our operational flexibility," Morrow said.

Google has warned websites they will be penalized for hosting marketing content designed to exploit search rankings, regardless of whether they created or outsourced the material. The crackdown on so-called "parasite SEO" targets websites that leverage their search rankings to promote unrelated content, such as news sites hiding shopping coupon codes or educational platforms publishing affiliate marketing material.

Chris Nelson from Google's search quality team said the policy applies even when content involves "white label services, licensing agreements, partial ownership agreements, and other complex business arrangements." The move follows Google's March announcement targeting site reputation abuse, which gained attention after Sports Illustrated was found publishing AI-generated product reviews through third-party marketing firm AdVon Commerce.

Bose has acquired the high-end audio brand McIntosh, a move the company says will "significantly" expand its product lineup and open "new opportunities in the automotive sector." The Verge reports: McIntosh has already designed a sound system for some Jeep models, but Bose's audio setups are found within a wider range of cars from automakers like Chevy, Honda, Nissan, Cadillac, and many others. It doesn't look like Bose or McIntosh will make any changes to their existing products. Bose says it will continue to launch its headphones, speakers, soundbars, and in-car audio, while McIntosh and Sonus faber will keep developing premium audio products, including amplifiers, loudspeakers, and turntables. "Over the last six decades we've delivered the best premium audio experiences possible; now, with McIntosh Group in our portfolio, we can unlock even more ways to bring music to life in the home, on-the-go and in the car," Bose CEO Lila Snyder said in a press release. "We look forward to honoring the heritage of these brands, investing in their future and pushing the boundaries of audio innovation to bring customers experiences they've never heard before."

Google is reportedly working on a multi-year project to migrate Chrome OS into Android, aiming to unify its operating systems and better compete with the iPad. This transition involves incorporating Chrome OS features like extensions and Linux app support into Android, with upcoming updates focused on improving desktop functionality and device compatibility. Android Authority reports: To better compete with the iPad as well as manage engineering resources more effectively, Google wants to unify its operating system efforts. Instead of merging Android and Chrome OS into a new operating system like rumors suggested in the past, however, a source told me that Google is instead working on fully migrating Chrome OS over to Android. While we don't know what this means for the Chrome OS or Chromebook brands, we did hear that Google wants future "Chromebooks" to ship with the Android OS in the future. That's why I believe that Google's rumored new Pixel Laptop will run a new version of desktop Android as opposed to the Chrome OS that you're likely familiar with.

While Google hasn't publicly confirmed its intentions to turn Chrome OS into Android, it did mention back in June that Chrome OS would become more like Android by "embracing portions of the Android stack, like the Android Linux kernel and Android frameworks." Chrome OS already makes use of some Android tech, such as the operating system's Bluetooth stack code-named "Fluoride," so the announcement that it would start to use even more of Android came as no surprise. However, Google's announcement didn't tell the full story, as we've since discovered that not only is Google building a new version of Chrome for Android with extensions support but also a Terminal to run Linux apps on Android. The former is intended to achieve feature parity between Chrome for Android and Chrome OS, while the latter is intended to deliver a Crostini-like experience when Chromebooks transition to Android.

However, there are still a lot of things that Google has to do to achieve feature parity between Android and Chrome OS. The desktop windowing changes that Google is introducing in the first quarterly platform release of Android 15 are just the beginning, as Google is working on a huge number of new Android features including improved keyboard and mouse support, external monitor support, multiple desktops, and more. All of these changes, we're told, are part of Google's internal Android-on-laptop project, though they'll also obviously benefit tablets like the upcoming Pixel Tablet 2.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Kyiv Independent: The United States will partner with Ukraine to transition Ukraine's coal-fired plants to small modular nuclear reactors, and to use them to help decarbonize its steel industry, the countries announced on November 16 at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan...

The partnership will build a roadmap and provide technical support to "rebuild, modernize, and decarbonize Ukraine's steel industry with small modular reactors," according to a statement from the U.S. State Department... It will also "facilitate the transition of Ukraine's coal-fired power plants to secure and safe SMR nuclear power plants utilizing existing infrastructure and retraining the workforce," the statement read.

Another project announced at the conference, known as COP29, will build a pilot plant in Ukraine to demonstrate production of clean hydrogen and ammonia using simulated small modular reactor technology.
That clean hydrogen/ammonia project involves a multinational public-private consortium which also includes Japan and South Korea, according to the U.S. State Department. Their announcement says the three projects "will help position Ukraine to take a leadership role on secure and safe nuclear energy" (as well as industrial decarbonization).

Three years ago the U.S. State Department launched a program to help countries develop nuclear energy programs "to support clean energy goals under the highest international standards for nuclear safety, security, and nonproliferation." That program will send $30 million for these three projects...

Bluesky, the social network surging in popularity, says it has "no intention" of training AI tools on users content. "The social network made the announcement on the same day that X (formerly Twitter) is implementing its new terms of service that allow the platform to use public posts to train AI," notes TechCrunch. From the report: "A number of artists and creators have made their home on Bluesky, and we hear their concerns with other platforms training on their data," Bluesky said in a post on its app. "We do not use any of your content to train generative AI, and have no intention of doing so." The company went on to note that it uses AI internally to help with content moderation and that it also uses the technology in its "Discover" algorithmic feed. However, Bluesky says "none of these are Gen AI systems trained on user content."

The White House said it's completed a $6.6 billion grant agreement with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) through the Chips and Science Act. "Today's announcement is among the most critical milestones yet in the implementation of the bipartisan CHIPS & Science Act, and demonstrates how we are ensuring that the progress made to date will continue to unfold in the coming years, benefitting communities all across the country," Biden said in a statement. The Hill reports: The grant is expected to create $65 billion of private investment by TSMC in Arizona, Biden said, which will include three new facilities and the creation of tens of thousands of jobs by the end of the decade. The first of the company's new facilities is on track to open next year. Biden earlier this year announced a slew of preliminary grant agreements with companies, including TSMC, through the CHIPS law. The announcement of a final agreement underscores how the administration is hoping to get those deals across the finish line before President-elect Trump takes office. [...]

Biden has repeatedly touted the importance of the CHIPS and Science Act, citing the prevalence of microchips that are used in everyday technology such as phones, cars, home appliances and more. Officials have said the law is critical to bolster domestic production of the chips to make the U.S. less reliant on foreign supply chains.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: There's a general consensus that we won't be able to consistently perform sophisticated quantum calculations without the development of error-corrected quantum computing, which is unlikely to arrive until the end of the decade. It's still an open question, however, whether we could perform limited but useful calculations at an earlier point. IBM is one of the companies that's betting the answer is yes, and on Wednesday, it announced a series of developments aimed at making that possible. On their own, none of the changes being announced are revolutionary. But collectively, changes across the hardware and software stacks have produced much more efficient and less error-prone operations. The net result is a system that supports the most complicated calculations yet on IBM's hardware, leaving the company optimistic that its users will find some calculations where quantum hardware provides an advantage. [...]

Wednesday's announcement was based on the introduction of the second version of its Heron processor, which has 133 qubits. That's still beyond the capability of simulations on classical computers, should it be able to operate with sufficiently low errors. IBM VP Jay Gambetta told Ars that Revision 2 of Heron focused on getting rid of what are called TLS (two-level system) errors. "If you see this sort of defect, which can be a dipole or just some electronic structure that is caught on the surface, that is what we believe is limiting the coherence of our devices," Gambetta said. This happens because the defects can resonate at a frequency that interacts with a nearby qubit, causing the qubit to drop out of the quantum state needed to participate in calculations (called a loss of coherence). By making small adjustments to the frequency that the qubits are operating at, it's possible to avoid these problems. This can be done when the Heron chip is being calibrated before it's opened for general use.

Separately, the company has done a rewrite of the software that controls the system during operations. "After learning from the community, seeing how to run larger circuits, [we were able to] almost better define what it should be and rewrite the whole stack towards that," Gambetta said. The result is a dramatic speed-up. "Something that took 122 hours now is down to a couple of hours," he told Ars. Since people are paying for time on this hardware, that's good for customers now. However, it could also pay off in the longer run, as some errors can occur randomly, so less time spent on a calculation can mean fewer errors. Despite all those improvements, errors are still likely during any significant calculations. While it continues to work toward developing error-corrected qubits, IBM is focusing on what it calls error mitigation, which it first detailed last year. [...] The problem here is that using the function is computationally difficult, and the difficulty increases with the qubit count. So, while it's still easier to do error mitigation calculations than simulate the quantum computer's behavior on the same hardware, there's still the risk of it becoming computationally intractable. But IBM has also taken the time to optimize that, too. "They've got algorithmic improvements, and the method that uses tensor methods [now] uses the GPU," Gambetta told Ars. "So I think it's a combination of both."

If you have Spotify's soon-to-be-bricked Car Thing, there are a few ways you can give it a new lease on life. YouTuber Dammit Jeff has showcased modifications to Car Thing that makes the device useful as a desktop music controller, customizable shortcut tool, or a simple digital clock. Ars Technica's Kevin Purdy reports: Spotify had previously posted the code for its uboot and kernel to GitHub, under the very unassuming name "spsgsb" and with no announcement (as discovered by Josh Hendrickson). Jeff has one idea why the streaming giant might not have made much noise about it: "The truth is, this thing isn't really great at running anything." It has half a gigabyte of memory, 4GB of internal storage, and a "really crappy processor" (Amlogic S905D2 SoC) and is mostly good for controlling music.

How do you get in? The SoC has a built-in USB "burning mode," allowing for a connected computer, running the right toolkit, to open up root access and overwrite its firmware. Jeff has quite a few issues getting connected (check his video description for some guidance), but it's "drag and drop" once you're in. Jeff runs through a few of the most popular options for a repurposed Car Thing:

- DeskThing, which largely makes Spotify desk-friendly, but adds a tiny app store for weather (including Jeff's own WeatherWave), clocks, and alternate music controls
- GlanceThing, which keeps the music controls but also provides some Stream-Deck-like app-launching shortcuts for your main computer.
- Nocturne, currently invite-only, is a wholly redesigned Spotify interface that restores all its Spotify functionality.

Renew Home says they're building a "virtual power plant" in Texas by "enabling homes to easily reduce and shift the timing of energy use." Thursday they announced a 10-year project distributing hundreds of thousands of smart thermostats to customers of Texas-based power utility NRG Energy, starting next spring. (Bloomberg calls them "AI-enabled thermostats that use Alphabet Inc.'s Google Cloud technology.") The ultimate goal? "Create a nearly 1-gigawatt, AI-powered virtual power plant" — equivalent to 1.9 million solar panels, enough to power about 200,000 homes during peak demand.

One NRG executive touted the move as "cutting-edge, AI-driven solutions that will bolster grid resilience and contribute to a more sustainable future." [Residential virtual power plants] work by aggregating numerous, small-scale distributed energy resources like HVAC systems controlled by smart thermostats and home batteries and coordinating them to balance supply and demand... NRG, in partnership with Renew Home, plans to offer Vivint and Nest smart thermostats, including professional installation, at no cost to eligible customers across NRG's retail electricity providers and plans. These advanced thermostats make subtle automatic HVAC adjustments to help customers shift their energy use to times when electricity is less constrained, less expensive, and cleaner... Over time, the parties expect to add devices like batteries and electric vehicles to the virtual power plant, expanding energy savings opportunities for customers...

Through the use of Google Cloud's data, analytics, and AI technology, NRG will be able to do things like better predict weather conditions, forecast wind and solar generation output, and create predictive pricing models, allowing for more efficient production and ultimately ensuring the home energy experience is seamless for customers.
Google Cloud will also offer "its AI and machine learning to determine the best time to cool or heat homes," reports Bloomberg, "based on a household's energy usage patterns and ambient temperatures."

It was less than a year ago that Renew Home was formed when Google spun off the load-shifting service for its "Google Nest" thermostats, which merged with load-shift management startup OhmConnect. Bloomberg describes this week's announcement as "Three of the biggest names in US home energy automation... coming together to offer some relief to the beleaguered Texas electrical grid."

But they point out that 1 gigawatt is roughly 1% of the record summer demand seen in Texas this year. Still, "The entire industry has been built to serve the peak load on the hottest day of the year," said Rasesh Patel, president of NRG's consumer unit. "This allows us to be a lot more smarter about demand in shaving the peak."

When a volcano erupted in 1980 about 70 miles from Portland, "lava incinerated anything living for miles around," remembers an announcement from the University of California at Riverside. But "As an experiment, scientists later dropped gophers onto parts of the scorched mountain for only 24 hours.

"The benefits from that single day were undeniable — and still visible 40 years later." Once the blistering blast of ash and debris cooled, scientists theorized that, by digging up beneficial bacteria and fungi, gophers might be able to help regenerate lost plant and animal life on the mountain. Two years after the eruption, they tested this theory. "They're often considered pests, but we thought they would take old soil, move it to the surface, and that would be where recovery would occur," said UC Riverside microbiologist Michael Allen.

They were right. But the scientists did not expect the benefits of this experiment would still be visible in the soil today, in 2024. A paper out this week in the journal Frontiers in Microbiomes details an enduring change in the communities of fungi and bacteria where gophers had been, versus nearby land where they were never introduced. "In the 1980s, we were just testing the short-term reaction," said Allen. "Who would have predicted you could toss a gopher in for a day and see a residual effect 40 years later?"

In 1983, Allen and Utah State University's James McMahon helicoptered to an area where the lava had turned the land into collapsing slabs of porous pumice. At that time, there were only about a dozen plants that had learned to live on these slabs. A few seeds had been dropped by birds, but the resulting seedlings struggled. After scientists dropped a few local gophers on two pumice plots for a day, the land exploded again with new life. Six years post-experiment, there were 40,000 plants thriving on the gopher plots. The untouched land remained mostly barren.
All this was possible because of what isn't always visible to the naked eye. Mycorrhizal fungi penetrate into plant root cells to exchange nutrients and resources. They can help protect plants from pathogens in the soil, and critically, by providing nutrients in barren places, they help plants establish themselves and survive.
Mycorrhizal fungi also helped an old-growth forest survive, accoridng to the researchers — even after volcano ash had caused them to drop their needles...

The Free Software Foundation turns forty on October 4, 2025 "and we will end our thirties on a high note!" they announced this week: We wish we were celebrating the achievement of software freedom for all computer users, but we're not there yet. Until our mission becomes reality and we can retire, instead, we are celebrating forty years of activism, and all that we have achieved.

Since our founding in 1985, we laid out many stepping stones on the road to software freedom, and we're eager to continue building the road ahead. We will celebrate our fortieth in the spirit of bringing the international free software community together, discussing what we can do next to make the world freer, and celebrating how far we've come. We're aiming for a libre planet! Sounds familiar? Instead of hosting one LibrePlanet conference in 2025, we're planning a jam-packed anniversary year, filled with several new and exciting activities!

We'll begin the anniversary year with an unprecedented memorabilia auction, starting as a silent auction on March 17, and culminating in a virtual live auction on March 23. By moving out of the FSF office, we got to sort through all the fun and historically important memorabilia and selected the best ones. This is your chance to get your very own personal souvenir of the FSF, from original GNU art to a famous katana and the very same VT220 that was standing on the FSF's front desk, and which people used to display ASCII art or to play free software games.

Let's claim the month of May as libre planet (or libre local) month! We're inviting free software supporters like you anywhere in the world, to organize an in-person community meetup in your area to bring people together. We're setting up a small fund for these local gatherings, can send stickers, flyers, ideas and tips, and you can invite an FSF staff member to give a talk or workshop during your event and of course, we'll help promote it...

Then, on the actual birthday of the FSF on October 4, 2025, there will be a big celebration in Boston, MA, and the entire free software community is invited... These are just some of the big ticket items we have worked out, but there is more! Keep an eye out on the FSF's pages, we'll be posting exact information on everything upcoming.
They're looking for volunteers — and they also suggest organizing a community meetup in your area. Plus, there's also an FSF Anniversary Logo Contest. "We would like to source the fortieth anniversary logo design directly from a free software supporter. Everyone is welcome to submit a design (or even multiple designs) no matter your previous experience in design."

The winning design "will be chosen by the community and ultimately immortalized in the history of the FSF," according to the announcement — displayed on the FSF homepage, printed on all celebration materials, "and possibly even stamped on some merchandise." But of course, the contest's requirements include respecting everyone's freedoms: - The logo must be produced using exclusively free software editing tools, such as GIMP, Krita, or Inkscape;

- Any fonts used in the design must be under the SIL Open Font license or another free license...
"The final logo will be released under CC BY, attributed to the FSF."

Sodium-ion batteries are cheaper than lithium-ion batteries — and they're also more environmentally friendly. And "In the past few years, sodium-ion battery production has increased in the United States," reports the Washington Post, with a new factory planned to manufacture them "in the same way as lithium-ion batteries, just with different ingredients. Instead of using expensive materials like lithium, nickel and cobalt, these will be made of sodium, iron and manganese..." Last month, sodium-ion battery manufacturer Natron Energy announced it would open a "gigafactory" in North Carolina that would produce 24 gigawatt hours of batteries annually, enough energy to charge 24,000 electric vehicles. But sodium-ion batteries are still early in their development compared with lithium-ion, and they have yet to hit the market on a massive scale.

"It's unlikely sodium-ion could displace lithium-ion anytime soon," said Keith Beers, polymer science and materials chemistry principal engineer at technical consultancy firm Exponent... The biggest limitation of sodium-ion batteries is their weight. Sodium weighs nearly three times as much as lithium, and it cannot store the same amount of energy. As a result, sodium-ion batteries tend to be larger. Jens Peters, an economics professor at the University of Alcalá in Madrid, said the energy density could be improved over time in sodium-ion batteries. But, he added, "what we found out so far in our assessments is that it is not a game changer."

Sodium-ion batteries are touted to be the environmentally friendly alternative to their lithium-ion counterparts, thanks to their raw materials. Sodium, iron and manganese are all abundant elements on the planet, so they require less energy to extract and cost less... Sodium-ion batteries also last longer than lithium-ion ones because they can withstand more charge cycles, said Wendell Brooks, co-CEO of Natron Energy. "Our product can have millions of cycles," said Brooks, "where lithium-ion would have three to five thousand cycles and wear out a lot faster...." Sodium-ion batteries aren't the best fit for smartphones or electric vehicles, which need to store lots of energy. However, one advantage is their low cost. And they could be a good candidate in situations where the size of the battery isn't a concern, like energy storage. "When something is built out to support grid or backup storage, it doesn't need to be very dense. It's staying put," Beers said.
Natron will invest nearly $1.4 billion in the factory "to meet the rapidly expanding demand for critical power, industrial and grid energy storage solutions," according to their announcement.

"Natron's high-performance sodium-ion batteries outperform lithium-ion batteries in power density and recharging speed, do not require lithium, cobalt, copper, or nickel, and are non-flammable... Natron's batteries are the only UL-listed sodium-ion batteries on the market today, and will be delivered to a wide range of customer end markets in the industrial power space, including data centers, mobility, EV fast charging, microgrids, and telecom, among others."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Anthropic has announced a partnership with Palantir and Amazon Web Services to bring its Claude AI models to unspecified US intelligence and defense agencies. Claude, a family of AI language models similar to those that power ChatGPT, will work within Palantir's platform using AWS hosting to process and analyze data. But some critics have called out the deal as contradictory to Anthropic's widely-publicized "AI safety" aims. On X, former Google co-head of AI ethics Timnit Gebru wrote of Anthropic's new deal with Palantir, "Look at how they care so much about 'existential risks to humanity.'"

The partnership makes Claude available within Palantir's Impact Level 6 environment (IL6), a defense-accredited system that handles data critical to national security up to the "secret" classification level. This move follows a broader trend of AI companies seeking defense contracts, with Meta offering its Llama models to defense partners and OpenAI pursuing closer ties with the Defense Department. In a press release, the companies outlined three main tasks for Claude in defense and intelligence settings: performing operations on large volumes of complex data at high speeds, identifying patterns and trends within that data, and streamlining document review and preparation.

While the partnership announcement suggests broad potential for AI-powered intelligence analysis, it states that human officials will retain their decision-making authority in these operations. As a reference point for the technology's capabilities, Palantir reported that one (unnamed) American insurance company used 78 AI agents powered by their platform and Claude to reduce an underwriting process from two weeks to three hours. The new collaboration builds on Anthropic's earlier integration of Claude into AWS GovCloud, a service built for government cloud computing. Anthropic, which recently began operations in Europe, has been seeking funding at a valuation up to $40 billion. The company has raised $7.6 billion, with Amazon as its primary investor.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Oregon Live: Intel told employees this week that it will bring back free coffee and tea at its work sites, one of many benefits the chipmaker eliminated last summer as it sought to slash $10 billion from its annual budget. "Although Intel still faces cost challenges, we understand that small comforts play a significant role in our daily routines," Intel wrote on its internal messaging forum, called Circuit. "We know this is a small step, but we hope it is a meaningful one in supporting our workplace culture." Intel declined comment. The company did not resume offering free fruit, another perk eliminated last summer. Employees say privately that morale has been devastated by Intel's poor financial performance and by cutbacks aimed at returning the business to profitability.

[...] Christy Pambianchi, Intel's chief people officer, told employees that Intel had been spending $100 million annually on free and discounted food and beverages and couldn't afford to keep doing that. "Until we get into a better financial health position, we need to be suspending those," Pambianchi said, according to an account of the meeting reviewed by The Oregonian/OregonLive. By Wednesday the company had reversed itself, committing to keep its employees caffeinated. In August, Intel announced plans to lay off over 16,000 employees, representing more than 15% of its global workforce. Its stock dropped to a 50-year low following the announcement. Starting November 8, Nvidia will replace the chipmaker on the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Ars Technica's Eric Berger reports: When Chinese space officials unveiled the design for the country's first super heavy lift rocket nearly a decade ago, it looked like a fairly conventional booster. The rocket was fully expendable, with three stages and solid motors strapped onto its sides. Since then, the Asian country has been revising the design of this rocket, named Long March 9, in response to the development of reusable rockets by SpaceX. As of two years ago, China had recalibrated the design to have a reusable first stage. Now, based on information released at a major airshow in Zhuhai, China, the design has morphed again. And this time, the plan for the Long March 9 rocket looks almost exactly like a clone of SpaceX's Starship rocket.

Based on its latest specifications, the Long March 9 rocket will have a fully reusable first stage powered by 30 YF-215 engines, which are full-flow staged combustion engines fueled by methane and liquid oxygen, each with a thrust of approximately 200 tons. By way of comparison, Starship's first stage is powered by 33 Raptor engines, also fueled with methane and liquid oxygen, each with a thrust of about 280 tons. The new specifications also include a fully reusable configuration of the rocket, with an upper stage that looks eerily similar to Starship's second stage, complete with flaps in a similar location. According to a presentation at the airshow, China intends to fly this vehicle for the first time in 2033, nearly a decade from now. Last week, Chinese space startup Cosmoleap announced plans to develop a fully reusable "Leap" rocket with the next few years. "An animated video that accompanied the funding announcement indicated that the company seeks to emulate the tower catch-with-chopsticks methodology that SpaceX successfully employed during Starship's fifth flight test last month," reports Ars.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) blocked Amazon's bid to access more power from the Susquehanna nuclear plant for its Pennsylvania data center, citing grid reliability and consumer cost concerns. The Hill reports: In a 2-1 decision, the FERC found the regional grid operator, PJM Interconnection, failed to prove that the changes to the transmission agreement with Susquehanna power plant were necessary. The regulator's two Republican commissioners, Mark Christie and Lindsay See, outvoted Democratic chair Willie Phillips. The chair's two fellow Democratic commissioners, David Rosner and Judy Chang, sat out the vote. "Co-location arrangements of the type presented here present an array of complicated, nuanced and multifaceted issues, which collectively could have huge ramifications for both grid reliability and consumer costs," Christie wrote in a concurring statement.

In a dissenting statement, Phillips argued the deal with Amazon "represents a 'first of its kind' co-located load configuration" and that Friday's decision is a "step backward for both electric reliability and national security." "We are on the cusp of a new phase in the energy transition, one that is characterized as much by soaring energy demand, due in large part to AI, as it is by rapid changes in the resource mix," Phillips wrote.

Amazon purchased a 960-megawatt data center next to the Susquehanna power plant for $650 million earlier this year. Following the announcement, PJM sought to increase the amount of power running directly to the co-located data center. However, the move faced pushback from regional utilities, including Exelon and American Electric Power (AEP).